"someone" <someone@somewhere.net> wrote in message <ib989g$fmu$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> Normally, the MATLAB FAQ is at:
>
> http://matlabwiki.mathworks.com/MATLAB_FAQ
>
> Now, I get a 'Page Not found' error.
> Where did it go?

Tragedy.

Now we're going to have to explain floating point notation and the many bad aspects of poofing: A1, A2, ... A349827783 many times per day.

We did make a decision to redirect traffic from that wiki page.
Our concern was that the wiki contents were not always updated,
so could cause confusion.

I propose that we use Newsreader and tagging to track posts
that are to be used as references. Steve Lord has kindly helped
me by suggesting which items are most frequently used and are
up to date. I will post items these items as separate posts to
Newsreader with the tag:faq.

"Helen Chen" <helen.chen@mathworks.com> wrote in message <ib9qnn$ri9$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> Hi Jan, Sean ,"Someone" and other community members -
>
> We did make a decision to redirect traffic from that wiki page.
> Our concern was that the wiki contents were not always updated,
> so could cause confusion.
>
> I propose that we use Newsreader and tagging to track posts
> that are to be used as references. Steve Lord has kindly helped
> me by suggesting which items are most frequently used and are
> up to date. I will post items these items as separate posts to
> Newsreader with the tag:faq.
>
> - This way you will be able to link to the exact content that you want.
> - If we find that it is not up to date, we can remove the tag from that post
> and tag a new post.
> - If you want to see all the FAQ posts, you can use this search
> http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/newsreader/search_results?search_string=tag%3Afaq
>
> If you have other favorite FAQ items that you often use, please
> drop me an email at helen.chen@mathworks.com. I'll have someone
> review the contents and see we can post it for you.
>
> I do apologize for the confusion and for not sending out a note
> beforehand.
>
> Helen

Hi Helen,

A few notes:

-I think this is terrible for backward compatibility. Now for anyone searching through the archives that links to the FAQ they will no longer be able to see the link.

-Most of those posts you refer to are now useless, since the meat of the post was at a link that is no longer valid.

-We could already link directly to the content we wanted on the old FAQ page by using the hyperlink directly to that part of the page.

-What was so bad about it not being updated? I mean obviously, there are minor changes but the bulk of it is the same i.e. theory. Why not to use eval, why 0.3-0.2~=0.1 etc.

-If it not being updated was an issue, could you open it up so anyone can update it? Or was it already this way and I didn't notice?

I'm willing to guess most of us will use the MIT FAQ since it still has the important stuff and is likely a stable link.

> Hi Helen,
>
> A few notes:
>
> -I think this is terrible for backward compatibility. Now for anyone searching through the archives that links to the FAQ they will no longer be able to see the link.
>
> -Most of those posts you refer to are now useless, since the meat of the post was at a link that is no longer valid.
>
> -We could already link directly to the content we wanted on the old FAQ page by using the hyperlink directly to that part of the page.
>
> -What was so bad about it not being updated? I mean obviously, there are minor changes but the bulk of it is the same i.e. theory. Why not to use eval, why 0.3-0.2~=0.1 etc.
>
> -If it not being updated was an issue, could you open it up so anyone can update it? Or was it already this way and I didn't notice?
>
> I'm willing to guess most of us will use the MIT FAQ since it still has the important stuff and is likely a stable link.

I see what you're doing with the many different posts. I'm still not really a fan. Now for us to link to that quickly we either have to search for it and dig through the results or store a whole bunch of direct links to our favorites whereas previously we could have just the FAQwiki saved, open it, and quickly reference to the point on it.

Helen Chen wrote:
> Hi Jan, Sean ,"Someone" and other community members -
> We did make a decision to redirect traffic from that wiki page. Our
> concern was that the wiki contents were not always updated, so could
> cause confusion.
> I propose that we use Newsreader and tagging to track posts
> that are to be used as references. Steve Lord has kindly helped me by
> suggesting which items are most frequently used and are up to date. I
> will post items these items as separate posts to Newsreader with the
> tag:faq.
...

As another already posted, this sucks big time...

A fairly sizable fraction of regular posters (primarily the responders)
don't use the TMW portal. Consequently the tag isn't around and the FAQ
content will expire at the rate of the particular newsserver retention
period outside the local TMW server.

While the wiki not having a TMW url start address was somewhat of a
pita, that was certainly far improved over this idea...

On 10-11-08 04:16 PM, dpb wrote:
> Helen Chen wrote:
>> I propose that we use Newsreader and tagging to track
>> posts
>> that are to be used as references

> As another already posted, this sucks big time...

In my opinion it is not a workable solution in its current form.

> A fairly sizable fraction of regular posters (primarily the responders)
> don't use the TMW portal. Consequently the tag isn't around

Even if we were using the portal, it would be a pain to have to search for the
current version of the posting, which we would have to do *every* time we
wanted to refer to it as the current place might change without notice while
we are reading or composing postings.

I think the concern expressed about links in old postings needing to be
preserved is a real one. The people who stop by and browse (perhaps by way of
google search on their topic) *might* bother to click on a FAQ link, but if
that link is dead then they probably aren't going to go searching "just in
case" that there might happen to be a newer version around: they are more
likely to think that the FAQ is simply gone.

I don't remember the formal titles of the FAQ questions, but some questions
get asked more than others, and it only takes relatively few seconds for me to
type a pure-text reply referring to "Question 4.2". If I have to instead write
instructions on how people should do a search to find the appropriate posting,
I'm probably not going to bother.

In my opinion, each FAQ question should have a fixed URL that gets to it (even
if it is not the primary URL), and that URL should be relatively easy for the
regulars to memorize -- e.g., http://faq.mathworks.com/Q4.2
What is done behind the scenes to make that point to current content is not of
great concern, other than our recognition that the more human effort it takes
to update, the more disincentive there is to make timely updates.

It might be workable if faq.mathworks.com/X redirected to a portal search for
tag:faq-X

A concern I have about the use of tag:faq in particular is that I have seen in
the past that people have tagged posts with "faq" when the post is one in
which a FAQ gets (re-) asked. I don't think it is advisable to require that
people know about the specialness of that particular tag and have to avoid it
in order to avoid breaking the reference scheme. Using a different tag: such
as (e.g.) faq-answer would alleviate this... though whatever tag is chosen,
unless it is somehow administratively prohibited to users, some user will
eventually apply to a posting.

I wasn't aware that it had been a wiki. At least not one that anyone
in the world could edit. Maybe someone should start such a MATLAB FAQ
on Wikipedia.org.

I don't like the idea of Helen sending out separate posts to the
newsgroup with the subject line or tag "FAQ." I think the benefit of
having a FAQ is that even though someone gets referred there for a
specific question, they see all kinds of other interesting questions
listed and read those too, thus learning a bunch more stuff that they
wouldn't learn or know about if there were separate one-topic posts.
With one topic posts, they're scattered among a bunch of other posts
and not all in "one place."
ImageAnalyst

> We did make a decision to redirect traffic from that wiki page.
> Our concern was that the wiki contents were not always updated,
> so could cause confusion.

I cannot remeber that the FAQs ever produced any confusions. In contrary, the community could reduce the confusion of hundreds of questioners by forwarding them to the FAQ. While I cannot find messages in the newsgroup like "I've read the FAQ and I'm confused now about...", did the technical support hear a lot of such questions?

And as said already: The vast majority of problems causing the posting of the FAQ link have not changed in the last 10 years: EVAL, ASSIGNIN, find([0:0.1:1] == 0.3). And if the problems are static, frequent updates are not very demanding.
Of course "Q6.5: Why does MATLAB 6.0 crash under Redhat 7.0?" is not very important anymore. But one could think of removing this question, instead of the complete document.

However, when I type these lines, I see the "Before you post, remeber" message on top of the interface on www.mathworks.com:
"- Check if your question is answered in the comp.soft-sys.matlab FAQ."
Now this line is not useful any longer. If I copy "comp.soft-sys.matlab FAQ" in the address line of my browser, the MathForum@Drexel is displayed. The FAQ shown there concerns the MathForum, not Matlab.

Which link do you recommend now for telling, why and how EVAL calls should be avoided? What about including updated versions of the FAQ in the Getting Started chapter of the docs? Users would definitely not surprised to find an FAQ there.

dpb <none@non.net> wrote in message <ib9t47$e6h$1@news.eternal-september.org>...
> Helen Chen wrote:
> > Hi Jan, Sean ,"Someone" and other community members -
> > We did make a decision to redirect traffic from that wiki page. Our
> > concern was that the wiki contents were not always updated, so could
> > cause confusion.
> > I propose that we use Newsreader and tagging to track posts
> > that are to be used as references. Steve Lord has kindly helped me by
> > suggesting which items are most frequently used and are up to date. I
> > will post items these items as separate posts to Newsreader with the
> > tag:faq.
> ...
>
> As another already posted, this sucks big time...

I'll third that!

I no longer see an easy way to tell a novice user why not to use eval
or pointing them to Cleve's excellent paper on floating point arithmetic.

>
> A fairly sizable fraction of regular posters (primarily the responders)
> don't use the TMW portal. Consequently the tag isn't around and the FAQ
> content will expire at the rate of the particular newsserver retention
> period outside the local TMW server.
>
> While the wiki not having a TMW url start address was somewhat of a
> pita, that was certainly far improved over this idea...
>
> --

> I will post items these items as separate posts to
> Newsreader with the tag:faq.
>

As if the questions don't get asked frequently enough already. If you want
to post the FAQ, then post the whole FAQ, once a month. If you prefer,
post a link to the FAQ once a month. The point of the FAQ is a single
reference list of questions and answers.

By the way, your tag:faq doesn't get propagated through Usenet headers.
Why not use X-Tag: faq or similar instead?

You are making a bold assumption here that users of MATLAB like to use
www.mathworks.com as a search engine. I really doubt that is the most
common case. Why would a reader of comp.soft-sys.matlab expect to need to
do that?

> You are making a bold assumption here that users of MATLAB like to use
> www.mathworks.com as a search engine. I really doubt that is the most
> common case. Why would a reader of comp.soft-sys.matlab expect to need to
> do that?

Note that posting from www.mathworks.com requires having a valid login and your posts are effectively moderated at source.

On Nov 9, 2:40 am, "Jan Simon" <matlab.THIS_Y...@nMINUSsimon.de>
wrote:
> Dear Helen,
...
> Which link do you recommend now for telling, why and how EVAL calls should be avoided? What about including updated versions of the FAQ in the Getting Started chapter of the docs? Users would definitely not surprised to find an FAQ there.

What's this??

Somebody have really stirred the hornet's nest somehow - it's by
no means every day one sees Jan Simon take a stand...?

> > Which link do you recommend now for telling, why and how EVAL calls should be avoided? What about including updated versions of the FAQ in the Getting Started chapter of the docs? Users would definitely not be surprised to find an FAQ there.

> What's this??
These are two questions and an actually trivial statement.

> And even more remarkably - I totally side with Jan on this one.
Then we are at least two Matlab users sharing the experience, that the FAQs of other software packages are usually included in the docs. Is this remarkably?

ImageAnalyst <imageanalyst@mailinator.com> wrote in message <a39f611f-14db-499f-9ea0-d8d77a8ca0a1@a37g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>...
> I wasn't aware that it had been a wiki. At least not one that anyone
> in the world could edit. Maybe someone should start such a MATLAB FAQ
> on Wikipedia.org.
>

Depending on what the reply is from the administrators this seems like a viable option. We could then update it ourselves which would be nice. I've always wanted to have an FAQ explanation of the need for SUB2IND.

"Sean " <sean.dewolski@nospamplease.umit.maine.edu> wrote in message <ibbnr8$pj5$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> ImageAnalyst <imageanalyst@mailinator.com> wrote in message <a39f611f-14db-499f-9ea0-d8d77a8ca0a1@a37g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>...
> > I wasn't aware that it had been a wiki. At least not one that anyone
> > in the world could edit. Maybe someone should start such a MATLAB FAQ
> > on Wikipedia.org.
> >
>
>
> Depending on what the reply is from the administrators this seems like a viable option. We could then update it ourselves which would be nice. I've always wanted to have an FAQ explanation of the need for SUB2IND.

"John D'Errico" <woodchips@rochester.rr.com> wrote in message <ibbo2n$bhb$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> "Sean " <sean.dewolski@nospamplease.umit.maine.edu> wrote in message <ibbnr8$pj5$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> > ImageAnalyst <imageanalyst@mailinator.com> wrote in message <a39f611f-14db-499f-9ea0-d8d77a8ca0a1@a37g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>...
> > > I wasn't aware that it had been a wiki. At least not one that anyone
> > > in the world could edit. Maybe someone should start such a MATLAB FAQ
> > > on Wikipedia.org.
> > >
> >
> >
> > Depending on what the reply is from the administrators this seems like a viable option. We could then update it ourselves which would be nice. I've always wanted to have an FAQ explanation of the need for SUB2IND.
>
> I need to add info on how to cite files from the FEX in
> publications.
>
> A wikipedia link would probably be perfect.
>
> John

It would probably be better to use a site like wikia.com (http://www.wikia.com/Special:CreateWiki), because wikipedia moderators are very strict about what type of content they allow - I imagine they would not take kindly to a FAQ, or to a large Matlab-specific page in general.

dpb <none@non.net> wrote in message <ibbqm5$p8d$1@news.eternal-september.org>...
> ImageAnalyst wrote:
> > I wasn't aware that it had been a wiki. At least not one that anyone
> > in the world could edit. Maybe someone should start such a MATLAB FAQ
> ...
>
> I wonder who might be the one??? Well, let's see, TMW is the owner and
> publisher of Matlab and there once was a FAQ wiki at.....oh, wait a
> minute...
>
> --

Copying the content over requires more than just copy-paste, if the formatting is to be retained. I just created main section headers based on the google cache. Anyone should feel free to copy content and improve the formatting.

Thank you for taking the initiative to get the new page started. I think that wikia is a great solution. I do appreciate your effort of doing this.

All -

A big thank you to each of you on this thread for the discussion. I do appreciate your honest feedback on the removal of the FAQ. I will remove the posts on Newsreader that I created and referenced earlier in this thread as the wiki will be the live version of the content.

I look forward to seeing how the new FAQ evolves over time now that it can be truly crowdsourced from within our community.

ImageAnalyst <imageanalyst@mailinator.com> wrote in message <02cbe8bb-bd8e-4b90-a83b-e64a5d10cc02@w30g2000prj.googlegroups.com>...
> Helen:
> I'm glad you're supportive of this. I think this wiki will be a big
> improvement over both the old FAQ and the newer change made a few days
> ago.
> ImageAnalyst

I agree. One request:
Do you think you could have the original FAQ link forward to the new one for backward compatibility's sake. Though the direct links to parts of the page may not be compatible, it would still be nice if it got to the page.

Sean wrote:
> ImageAnalyst <imageanalyst@mailinator.com> wrote in message
> <02cbe8bb-bd8e-4b90-a83b-e64a5d10cc02@w30g2000prj.googlegroups.com>...
>> Helen:
>> I'm glad you're supportive of this. I think this wiki will be a big
>> improvement over both the old FAQ and the newer change made a few days
>> ago.
>> ImageAnalyst
>
> I agree. One request:
> Do you think you could have the original FAQ link forward to the new one
> for backward compatibility's sake. Though the direct links to parts of
> the page may not be compatible, it would still be nice if it got to the
> page.

...

At least the latter of the two alternatives above is surely easily
beaten... :)

I'd agree that at a bare bones the links in existing references should
be forwarded to the page as, of course, Steve's sig that had the wiki
address in it and that he referenced so often, if not, forwarded makes
many of the useful posts of little or no value to searchers. And, if
that is so, then there's little point in TMW retaining the archive
locally as well as the google archives being of far less value than
otherwise as well.

I remain flabbergasted that TMW would have done such a thing w/o having
requested feedback from the user community first. I'm only slightly
less puzzled by the apparent lack of willingness for TMW to invest
effort in updating/maintaining the FAQ content for their own product but
rely (apparently) almost if not entirely on pro bono efforts of their
users...

dpb <none@non.net> wrote in message <ibc8i8$oc6$1@news.eternal-september.org>...
> Sean wrote:
> > ImageAnalyst <imageanalyst@mailinator.com> wrote in message
> > <02cbe8bb-bd8e-4b90-a83b-e64a5d10cc02@w30g2000prj.googlegroups.com>...
> >> Helen:
> >> I'm glad you're supportive of this. I think this wiki will be a big
> >> improvement over both the old FAQ and the newer change made a few days
> >> ago.
> >> ImageAnalyst
> >
> > I agree. One request:
> > Do you think you could have the original FAQ link forward to the new one
> > for backward compatibility's sake. Though the direct links to parts of
> > the page may not be compatible, it would still be nice if it got to the
> > page.
>
> ...
>
> At least the latter of the two alternatives above is surely easily
> beaten... :)
>
> I'd agree that at a bare bones the links in existing references should
> be forwarded to the page as, of course, Steve's sig that had the wiki
> address in it and that he referenced so often, if not, forwarded makes
> many of the useful posts of little or no value to searchers. And, if
> that is so, then there's little point in TMW retaining the archive
> locally as well as the google archives being of far less value than
> otherwise as well.
>
> I remain flabbergasted that TMW would have done such a thing w/o having
> requested feedback from the user community first. I'm only slightly
> less puzzled by the apparent lack of willingness for TMW to invest
> effort in updating/maintaining the FAQ content for their own product but
> rely (apparently) almost if not entirely on pro bono efforts of their
> users...

> I remain flabbergasted that TMW would have done such a thing w/o having
> requested feedback from the user community first.

I don't understand either.

The sudden change leads me to _speculate_ that someone complained about an
inaccuracy or lack of full explication of something in the FAQ, and that
person is considered to have enough financial influence for Mathworks to react
-- or the person threatened a lawsuit and either the suits or the lawyers said
"This isn't worth the hastle -- get rid of it!"

Pure BS speculation, that: I have no idea what happened, but those are the
sorts of pressures that _tend_ to lead companies to make these kinds of decisions.

Walter Roberson <roberson@hushmail.com> wrote in message <ibcakj$lnp$1@canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca>...
> On 10-11-09 01:43 PM, dpb wrote:
>
> > I remain flabbergasted that TMW would have done such a thing w/o having
> > requested feedback from the user community first.
>
> I don't understand either.
>
> The sudden change leads me to _speculate_ that someone complained about an
> inaccuracy or lack of full explication of something in the FAQ, and that
> person is considered to have enough financial influence for Mathworks to react
> -- or the person threatened a lawsuit and either the suits or the lawyers said
> "This isn't worth the hastle -- get rid of it!"
>
> Pure BS speculation, that: I have no idea what happened, but those are the
> sorts of pressures that _tend_ to lead companies to make these kinds of decisions.

I hadn't thought of that, but even so, you would think some kind of disclaimer might handle that case. Come to think of it, could the same argumernt be made about this newsgroup itself? Especially when someone like a Mathworks employee gives advice?

"Sean " <sean.dewolski@nospamplease.umit.maine.edu> wrote in message <ibc4nq$gij$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> Do you think you could have the original FAQ link forward to the new one for backward compatibility's sake. Though the direct links to parts of the page may not be compatible, it would still be nice if it got to the page.

"Helen Chen" <helen.chen@mathworks.com> wrote in message <ibelos$idh$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> "Sean " <sean.dewolski@nospamplease.umit.maine.edu> wrote in message <ibc4nq$gij$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> > Do you think you could have the original FAQ link forward to the new one for backward compatibility's sake. Though the direct links to parts of the page may not be compatible, it would still be nice if it got to the page.

The redirect change is complete. Traffic going to the old cssm FAQ now directs to the new wikia page instead of to the MathWorks documentation page.

On Nov 9, 12:42 pm, "Jan Simon" <matlab.THIS_Y...@nMINUSsimon.de>
wrote:
> DearRune,
>
> > > Which link do you recommend now for telling, why and how EVAL calls should be avoided? What about including updated versions of the FAQ in the Getting Started chapter of the docs? Users would definitely not be surprised to find an FAQ there.
> > What's this??
>
> These are two questions and an actually trivial statement.
>
> > And even more remarkably - I totally side with Jan on this one.
>
> Then we are at least two Matlab users sharing the experience, that the FAQs of other software packages are usually included in the docs. Is this remarkably?

Whats remarkable is that you and I agree on something.
I think this is just about the first time it happens.

tristram.scott@ntlworld.com (Tristram Scott) wrote in message
> You are making a bold assumption here that users of MATLAB like to use
> www.mathworks.com as a search engine. I really doubt that is the most
> common case.

You could think it is a polite way to say RTFM, but not ! I just want to show that 95% of questions have an answer in the MATLAB doc which is by the way easily reachable by just typing support command in MATLAB.
Just FYI , in the French ML forum , we also have a FAQ with 125 questions in French : http://matlab.developpez.com/faq/ but that's true that we do not have a FAQ for the question "Why does MATLAB 6.0 crash under Redhat 7.0?"!! ...

Another point is I definitely like the new design of Documentation center(beta) . If the wiki FAQ hadn't been moved I would have never discovered this web page. And I say in my blog (see the link under my signature) I didn't find any TMW web page promoting this beta.

"Aurelien Queffurust" <tug83@yahoo.fr> wrote in message
news:ibjbuf$c9r$1@fred.mathworks.com...
> tristram.scott@ntlworld.com (Tristram Scott) wrote in message
>> You are making a bold assumption here that users of MATLAB like to use
>> www.mathworks.com as a search engine. I really doubt that is the most
>> common case.
>
> Hi Tristam,
>
> As a moderator of the French MATLAB forum , I always answer questions by
> linking the MATLAB doc or Tech Notes / How-To Guides :
> http://www.mathworks.com/support/tech-notes/list_all.html , 1103 for eval
> , 1108 for find([0:0.1:1] == 0.3) …
>
> You could think it is a polite way to say RTFM, but not ! I just want to
> show that 95% of questions have an answer in the MATLAB doc which is by
> the way easily reachable by just typing support command in MATLAB.
> Just FYI , in the French ML forum , we also have a FAQ with 125 questions
> in French : http://matlab.developpez.com/faq/ but that's true that we do
> not have a FAQ for the question "Why does MATLAB 6.0 crash under Redhat
> 7.0?"!! ...
>
>
> Another point is I definitely like the new design of Documentation
> center(beta) . If the wiki FAQ hadn't been moved I would have never
> discovered this web page. And I say in my blog (see the link under my
> signature) I didn't find any TMW web page promoting this beta.

FYI, the "Mike on the MATLAB Desktop" blog posted about it in September: